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Saturday, October 24, 2009

Saturday, October 24, 2009

So I'm browsing around the internets the other day looking for bug cakes (don't ask) and I come across the Flickr page of Second City Warehouse. What I saw there made my trackball come to a screeching halt. It seems that Steph's boss, Carl, was leaving for a new and better job and it was Steph's job to pick up the booze and the cake. But I'll let her tell you the rest of the story:

"Of course, I wanted the cake to be very special and couldn't think of anything else to put on it aside from a bat fly." [I feel like we're missing something here.]

"So, I picked out Carl's very favorite microptics print [Who doesn't have a favorite microptics print?] and took it to the bakery to see if they could replicate the image on a cake in frosting."At the bakery, I decided to cut to the chase, so I pulled the picture out first thing in order to make sure they could transfer it. The bakers were stunned into a profound silence as they stared at the photo. I opened my mouth to explain, but a little voice in my head said, 'No no, don't. It's funnier this way.'"When they finally tore their eyes away to look up at me, I smiled and said, 'So. You guys are the experts, let me know what you think. I was thinking of a blue border, but I'm not sure about the decorations. Balloons, do you you think, or flowers?'"The manager of the bakery didn't really answer my question, just silently filled out the order form and wrote 'balloons.'"Y'all ready to see this thing now? Here 'tis:

"When I got the cake, I was tickled to see that they had attached frosting balloon strings to the hind leg, the wing and somewhere near the head. I suppose they weren't sure how a microscopic insect might choose to hold a balloon." [Well, that makes about 75,000 of us.]

Let me just say that this cake has given me a whole new appreciation for grocery store bakers. Thanks for letting me borrow your story, Steph!

Note from john (the hubby of Jen): Several of you have noted that this isn't a "wreck" in the strictest sense of the word, to which I say, true that. It is, however, a fun cake story. And it's Saturday. Go with it. Peace out, yo.

The most impressive thing to me is that these bakers actually knew to put a comma before the direct address!!! Wow! I believe that is the very first time I have every seen a comma placed in the correct spot for a direct address on a cake featured on this blog (even on the Sunday cakes, the "good" ones, the bakers don't seem to know much about basic punctuation). I am truly impressed today -- even if I had no idea this insect existed, with or without the balloons. :)

Very cool. I don't think a weird cake is necessarily a wreck--this is quite specifically tuned for a particular recipient and works quite well in that context. Trust me, scientists tend to be very into their work.

John, don't feel that you need explain "browsing around the internets the other day looking for bug cakes." Personally, I do that every chance I get, as do countless others, I'll be bound.This one is superlative.I was a bit surprised to find out that there was such a thing as a Batfly; at first I'd assumed that you were talking about a fly ON a bat. Which does happen, sadly enough.Learn something new every now and again, eh?Oh, and I find the Batfly's feet interesting in that they look like tiny high heels, or horse hooves.Fascinating!And maybe try interbugnets next time.

The decorators deserve a Medal of Cakery Honor--the cake is absolutely brilliant!

Maybe there's a blog sub-category needed for bakeries that do their noble best on weird orders made by difficult customers (not that there's anything wrong with insects or the people who love them...some of my best friends are bugs...:-)).

Having worked in a grocery store bakery, I can only imagine what kind of conversations happened amongst workers after she left. I bet they told everyone they could about the "Crazy insect cake lady"...then again, who wouldn't gossip about such a thing?

If you combine the fact that this is a cake of a balloon-strewn bug with the fact that she was also in charge of getting the booze, this is one HA-LARIOUS cake! I mean, it looks to me like this party "animal" tied on a few too many. He got seriously guano-faced, and so he's going to have one serious hang-over in the morning.

Being the stick in the mud that I am, may I point out that this is just one of those photocakes (picture printed on edible paper) that you were making fun of a few days ago. I guess since it is a picture of a fly instead of a company logo or coat of arms makes it acceptable. Good job on the balloons though.

I grew up in "Deep South" southern Mississippi (insert degree of accent) and have squashed many a cockroach. Now, in Mississippi, cockroaches aren't tiny little things, but are majorly BIG bugs that can FLY! My least favorite part of doing such a thing was how they sounded when you stepped on them . . . CRUNCH (as Mama G said) with WHITE "STUFF" coming out of them.

Now, this cake, almost all white, would just conjure up nightmares for me. Would that bug go CRUNCH and would white frosting ooze out?

EEK! (Running off in fright with hands waving in the air!)

WV: wherm . . . might have been better if a wherm had been used instead of a crunchy-looking bug!

I look for bug cakes too. I showed these to my sons and husband with the hope that one of them will **take the hint** and get me something like this just once.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smallthingsiced/3784798682/

(the second one on this page)http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.beach-wedding-themes.com/images/MintDragonflyCake.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.beach-wedding-themes.com/dragonfly-wedding.html&usg=__3z79DyEKyZFz0AjZKy48Yur2ffo=&h=411&w=299&sz=26&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=3gD04IZEiB0luM:&tbnh=125&tbnw=91&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmost%2Bbeautiful %2Bdragonfly%2Bcake%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1

A little creative Googling turns up Carl's homepage and the 100,000 specimens of Bat Flies at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago (75% of known world species represented!). Which I guess is an explanation. Sort of.

In defense of this as a photocake, rather than just being a rectangular transfer slapped on to the cake, the bakers either carefully cut around the edges or did a superlative job matching the background to the frosting.

Carl is an amazing guy who does pretty neat research and also put tarantulas and giant hissing cockroaches on my kids . . . . and I can imagine he must have thought this was the coolest cake ever. Carl can make horrifying bugs seem pretty cool . . . he got me to hold a tarantula, although my wife passed.

He's off on a trip involving insects somewhere or other at the moment, but I hope Steph showed him this or at least sends him a link when he gets back. He'll get a kick out of this.

While I agree that the overall idea is awesome and funny, at least to Carl and Steph. The edible image could have been cropped better. Other than that, kudos grocery store decorator! You did an excellent job with the request made of you.

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